‘Speech and Sedition in 2021’

George Rebane

That is the title of the important lead editorial (here) in the 30jan21 WSJ, and very relevant to the ongoing discussions and debates on these pages.  The whole notion of speech-based sedition arose with the Federalists who essentially ran the government of the newly born United States.  The Federalists and their agencies, did not consider themselves as a political party, they simply saw themselves as THE government when they passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.  Therefore, any speech that opposed them or their ideas opposed the government, and was therefore by definition seditious.  The Democrats of today have overwhelmed themselves into the same government positions and the same mindset.

Today the WaPo again supplies one of the abundant confirmations of this by arguing that the Federalists’ stratagems with such legislation and its enforcements did not go far enough, and was therefore “flawed”.  This is buttressed by Democrats who “increasingly see domestic enemies wherever they look, and are devising ways to use levers of power to restrict, regulate and boycott opposition. It’s an extraordinary and ominous turn in a democracy.”

Progressive media are ratcheting up their war cries against opposing cable news organizations like FN with histrionics declaring that the outlet’s “role in the 400,000 U.S. lives lost to the pandemic and in the disastrous attack of Jan. 6” has been “deadly.”  Their call is for sponsors to “walk away” and “withdraw from Fox News so long as it functions as an extremist madrasa.” (emphasis mine)  Corporatist allies regularly echo a former Facebook executive on CNN declaring that “we have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences.”  This politically monopolist “trend arrives when one party runs nearly all of Washington and has the loud support of virtually every elite cultural institution and many of the largest corporations. Social-media firms increasingly respond to government pressure in content decisions. With progressives filling out the administrative state, expect politicians and regulators to find new ways to put their thumb on the scale.”  And that is exactly what we are witnessing in the ongoing destruction of our First Amendment rights.

The country’s Left is already renewing its call for reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine to enforce its new draconian desiderata for suppressing free speech.  All this is done under the noble aegis of “regulating misinformation”, necessitated, according to Axios, by the government doing “next to nothing to regulate misinformation on large tech platforms”, with liberal fact-checker Politifact piling on with the need for “regulations and new laws” to marginalize right-wing media.

Returning to the Federalists of our early years, today we see “the liberal temptation to define their point of view as the only legitimate one—to view themselves as ‘the government’, rather than one of two parties—is growing stronger.”  In such an environment of growing political and physical dominance, people like me have every reason to fear for our livelihoods and lives.  In these pages local leftwingers grow more strident with their threatening reports of far-left organizations making lists that contain names of everyone from wrong-thinking bloggers and commenters to supporters and former employees of our recent President Trump.  Their message is that they know where we live, and they will come for us at their pleasure when the time is right.

I’ll close this by underlining a most recent and proximal example of such a far-left reader in the person of Steven Frisch, CEO of the cynically named Sierra Business Council.  Over the years he has regularly visited RR to accuse me, mine, and conservative readers in general of racism, Nazism, white nationalism, white supremacism, insurrection, sedition, treason, … .  His tone of late (e.g. see comment stream here) has definitely adopted the larger-than-life institutional ‘we’ when he talks about the thoughts and future fortunes of the ‘you’ consisting of us unredeemable redundants, especially those uneducable wrong-thinkers who have had a lot of birthdays.

Today we are seeing the reprise of how Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party monopolized German politics in the 1930s by visibly militarizing its civil society with armed units of the SA and SS under the guise of defending the nation against home-grown seditious communist terrorists preparing for insurrection.  Now our Left are the proto-communists, marching under the more benign socialist banner, who claim to construct needed defenses against ascendant far-right, domestic Nazism.  And following Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the Democrats and their lamestream media are accusing their opponents of exactly what they are doing in the city streets, around government buildings, and inside state houses where they are busy generating policies and laws that will transform America.

Comments

[RXCross]

In the category of seeing "domestic enemies wherever they look" -- DJT was a Russian asset after all, easily cultivated and manipulated due to his obvious personality disorders.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

[George Rebane]

RX 906am - Now are you in desperation grabbing that as evidence of Russian collusion? Does that report provide some relief after all these years of no evidence?

[Scott O]

X 9:06 - Hilarious!
If Trump was a Russian 'asset' he was the worst asset they ever had.
Trump's energy policy to push the US into becoming an energy exporting country for the first time in decades and driving down the cost of oil hurt Putin badly. Biden will help to make sure Putin has Europe by the balls with the gas pipeline that Trump tried to stop by wanting to send our LNG to Europe. Probably one of the big reasons the established 'world order' had to get rid of Trump pronto.
Biden will put America's energy needs back under other countries control. Remember "no blood for oil"?
That article had zero evidence that Trump ever did anything for Russia.
Bought some TVs from a guy with a Russian name! Oooooh!

[RXCross]

I'l bet you people are really bad at 'connect the dot' pictures....and rational thinking

[George Rebane]

RX 1113am - You were doing real well with your 906am, citing the kind of 'evidence' that informs your worldview. But here again you lapse into naked and beyond-boring snark. Were you to reflect on it, I believe that you will not feel elevated by such contributions.

[Scott O]

X 11:13 You forgot to add that we're also facist, racist and homophobic.
You are slipping, my friend.

[Bill Tozer]

re: Speech and Sedition in 2021.

Everywhere they look they see a racist, a Nazi, and a domestic terrorist. The trifecta.

To update an well known English proverb—a bird in the hand is worth three in the bush.

[RXCross]

The Cline Center of U of Illinois, the world's largest tracker of Coups both failed and successful had, using their global criteria for definitions has determined that the republican attempt to overthrow the election was, in fact, an attempted coup. So what does that make those who supported that event both physically and verbally?

[fish]

Posted by: Roberta Xaviera Cross | 01 February 2021 at 12:38 PM

The Cline Center of U of Illinois, the world's largest tracker of Coups both failed and successful had, using their global criteria for definitions has determined that the republican attempt to overthrow the election was, in fact, an attempted coup. So what does that make those who supported that event both physically and verbally?

Don't you worry your pretty little head about this "coup" business Bertie. Now, how bout rustling me up a sammich?!

[George Rebane]

I wonder what of the Republican attempts to contest the election were evidence of a coup for the Cline Center. It appears that everything was done according to the laws of the land (including the Constitution), which themselves are left open to interpretation that employs our vast and growing legal system. Who here claims that the US Code and Constitution have a single, established, and uniformly adopted interpretation? For openers Democrats and Republicans have widely disparate views and interpretations of almost everything that is included in our formal and ad hoc social contract. Who in our land speaks ex cathedra on such matters?

[RXCross]

"what of the Republican attempts to contest the election were evidence of a coup for the Cline Center. " DUH! Because republican attempts to contest the election had no basis in fact. Because there was nothing to contest, at least according to the courts and the republican election officials overseeing the elections in the various contested states. Most arguments are settled on the basis of fact. The facts tell the story regardless of how much lipstick you try and put on a pig. Therefore, anyone capable of adding one plus one and not getting three for an answer would have recognized that any attempt to overturn a lawful and fair election constitutes an attempted coup, regardless of the fabrications in their minds that lets them believe otherwise... you know like a banana republic. So who are the 'freedom fighters' and who are the 'terrorists' in this scenario? Who is the law and who is the lawless?

You may, as an expression of your 1st amendment rights, throw up as much flack as you like.. but that doesn't change what happened nor why..

Fishy -- do you have enough teeth left to chew a sammich?

[fish]

Posted by: Roberta Xaviera Cross | 01 February 2021 at 03:56 PM

Fishy -- do you have enough teeth left to chew a sammich?

What kind of sammich baby?

[fish]

Posted by: Wine Aunt | 01 February 2021 at 03:56 PM

You are so cute when you get all worked up about politics....

"Trump's gone, the melodrama is no longer necessary. There was never any "attempted coup" -- there was a brief interruption of Congressional activity, and at no point did it come remotely close to overthrowing the government. For reference, a real "coup" is underway in Myanmar

Michael Tracey

https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1356101212064673792

[Scott O]

Crossed-out 3:56 - "Because there was nothing to contest, at least according to the courts..."
The courts never ruled on that.
The idea that going to a court of law to peacefully and factually settle a dispute makes you a bad person is one amazing idea.
Would anyone care to guess how an actual 'coup' is carried out?
Anyone?
The Cross one certainly hasn't a clue.

[George Rebane]

re RX 356pm - Not sure that it will take the cake, but that rebuttal is one of the most hubristically ignorant ones to decorate these pages. It is definitely in the running.

[Bill Tozer]

Impeachment stuff. "You can smell the fear."

Is the Establishment Still Terrified of Trump?

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/is-the-establishment-still-terrified-of-trump-/

[Walt]

More bad Rx there Babs? It was just FINE when LIB questioned Trump's election, On Rx at that time? Hillary claimed SHE WON for four years. Yet no basis in fact there Barbra.
Now,, can you name the buttsore LIB who thinks she's Gov. of Georgia? No basis of fact their either.

So Video of voter fraud is no fact? 1000 dead voters in Nevada is not a fact? Illegal votes in Las Vegas not a fact?
Refusal to allow investigations into these examples is not fact?
So toke up some more of that Rx Babs..

Now don't forget (ya.. I know you have forgot) the attack on Trump for 3.7 years of bogus accusations with no basis of fact.

Would you like a blender so you can eat your sammich?

[Walt]

So I'm not the only one who noticed.....
https://www.foxnews.com/media/snl-liberal-comedians-scared-criticize-biden-cuomo-carolla

[Walt]

Bad news for Babs and Emery.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-the-trump-impeachment-fizzled-and-acquittal-is-now-a-foregone-conclusion

Here.. Let me give you the LIB comic book short story.
You can't impeach a private citizen.

Your LIBS are SO buttsore against Trump, legislation so NOTHING can be named after him? Some real fine Communist bastards you vote for.
Now how bout those schools and bridges named after elected KLAN members? ( do your own homework on those... Call it a learning experience)

[Walt]

Did Emery get his before they were pulled from sale?
We know how he likes to collect "LIB stuff"
(disclaimer)
For those with weak constitutions,,, read no further.

"The day after the inauguration, transition ethics lawyers had to tell Meena she could not continue to sell a number of items for her clothing brand Phenomenal that beared her aunt’s name– the “Kamala Harris Swimsuit,” “phenomenal Kamala Tank,” and “Kamala T-shirt.” The items that appeared last fall are no longer listed on her site."

No... Don't picture that... DAMN... You did.... I told you not too. The bottle of whiskey is right over there.... It will help numb the pain.

[Don Bessee]

The thought police in full effect -

SNL, liberal comedians 'scared' to criticize Joe Biden, Gov. Cuomo: Adam Carolla
'Cancel culture has drifted over to comedy,' podcaster says

https://www.foxnews.com/media/snl-liberal-comedians-scared-criticize-biden-cuomo-carolla

;-)

[Don Bessee]

Well of course they did! -

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/01/house-democrats-seek-to-include-amnesty-for-illegal-aliens-in-coronavirus-relief-package/

;-)

[Don Bessee]

Collusion it be -

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/01/the-circle-woman-report-shows-biden-staff-prescreening-psaki-press-briefing-questions/

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Stop Sensationalizing the Threat of Right-Wing Political Violence

https://quillette.com/2021/01/28/stop-sensationalizing-the-threat-of-right-wing-political-violence/